


Measure for Measure

by Ninni



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU where Sam went to Stanford and became a lawyer, Dean continued hunting, Jessica Moore - Freeform, John is dead, Lawyer!Sam Winchester, M/M, Pining!Sam, Sam left for real, Supernatural AU - Freeform, Top!Sam, Wincest AU - Freeform, bottom!Dean, pining!dean, reuinion 7 years after Sam left for college
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:04:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7284742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninni/pseuds/Ninni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean had imagined a thousand times what it would be like to see his little brother again, but not once had this particular scenario occured to him. Wincest AU where Sam never left Stanford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**  
**

**Measure for Measure**

  


Dean was fairly certain he wouldn’t make it out this time and when the bulky police officer barked at him that he was free to go, he felt his jaw drop.

“I’m what?”

The officer’s mouth curled disdainfully. “Trust me you son of a bitch, I’m still convinced you murdered that poor woman in cold blood. But that fancy attorney of yours out there,” -he gestured angrily at the closed door- “has apparently managed to sweet talk your guilty ass cleared of all charges.”

Dean couldn’t help the disbelief that crept into his voice when he asked, “My _attorney_?”

The officer’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, your attorney. Can’t see how scum like you can afford to hire someone like him, his god damn suit’s probably worth what I make in a month. Now get the hell out of here before I do something to you that’ll cost me my badge.”

Dean scrambled up from the plastic chair and set for the door. Who was this attorney? And what did they want from Dean? Another hunter who’d known about the shapeshifter’s nest too, maybe?

Little did he know at the time that nothing would prepare him for who was waiting outside for him.

Dean remembered the last time he’d seen his little brother – it had been seven years ago. Dean had been standing in that shitty motel room, watching in disbelief and horror as Sam threw the few belongings he had into a dirty bag, packing under a furious silence as their father had screamed at him. Dean remembered how his own voice had sounded; pleading and small, he remembered so well what he’d kept repeating. _Sammy, please… Please, don’t. Please don’t leave._

Sam hadn’t listened. Sam had pushed past Dean without even looking at him, he’d walked out from the motel room in Indiana and disappeared into the stuffy summer night. Dean’s breath had caught in his throat back then; he’d choked on the grief, the helplessness and the sheer dread he felt at the prospect of Sam leaving. The one flicker of light in the darkness that was Dean’s miserable existence. His brother, the brother he loved fiercely, _too fiercely_ – he knew, but he tried not to think about that because he didn’t want to be a monster, but god help him he did.

But Sam had left, he’d left Dean in a seven years gaping hellhole consisting of bloody hunts and whiskey mornings.

And now Sam stepped back into Dean’s life, dressed in a suit that made Dean’s breath hitch again, this time not entirely for the same reasons. It was Sam, all right, only taller, broader – he was positively _huge_. His hair, still shaggy and dark, fell around his face. The mouth pink. Dean swallowed. Sam had grown into some tall, gorgeous Adonis like lawyer, and Dean realized that this Sam made his knees go weak just like the scrawny teenaged Sam had all those years ago. Shit.

“Mr Deacon,” Sam’s voice was shockingly smooth and deep when he spoke Dean’s alias. “Please follow me.”

Dean followed, stunned, as Sam turned around and walked out the station, a stony glare thrown in the direction of the officer that had hurled insults at Dean earlier.

The door closed after them as they stepped out to the parking lot. Sam turned around, looking at Dean properly for the first time. Dean thought his hazel eyes softened, and for a second he recognized Sam, his Sam, for the first time.

“Dean,” Sam said quietly, his eyes roaming over Dean’s features as if he was trying to identify every single change, every new line Dean had gotten over the years. “Still with the rockstar aliases, huh? John Deacon – bassist in Queen, right? The name caught my attention. Saw your picture looking through the file, thought I should help you out. So, a shapeshifter?”

Dean looked up into Sam’s face. “Are you really a lawyer?”

Confusion flickered over Sam’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, what did you think?”

Dean dropped his gaze to the ground. Yeah, what had he been thinking? That Sam was a hunter working undercover? He noticed Sam’s shoes. Looked like some expensive Italian shit. Or whatever. He shoved his hands into his pockets, a sudden feeling of bitterness surging through him.

“Whatever. So you really went to Stanford, then? You really got what you wanted.” Dean was aware of the spite in his voice. He couldn’t help it. Seven fucking years, seven years of him living, if you could call it that, on the road, thinking of Sam. Wondering where he was. Agonizing over if he was all right, if he slept, if he ate. If he ever thought of Dean. All this time Sam had gone off to become some fucking well-tailored douchebag attorney.

Sam didn’t reply. They stood in silence, the grey concrete of the parking lot a perfect mirror image of the grey skies above them. The reunion was, to say the least, anticlimactic.

“Dean, I-“

“Where’s the Impala?” Dean interrupted Sam. “I should probably get out of here.”

Sam’s jaw tensed. “It’s still parked outside the nest. I’ll give you a ride, but we’ll get something to eat first. You must be starving.”

Dean shivered at the authorial tone in Sam’s voice. He didn’t know if it was out of annoyance or something else, something he had many years ago decided to bury deep inside him. Something he’d tried to drown in whiskey and smother with violence. He wasn’t going to dwell on it now. Not again.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “I guess. The diner down the road fine by you?”

Sam nodded as he pulled out a set of shiny car keys from his briefcase. “Sure. I’ll just pop by my place first and drop off the files, if that’s OK.”

Dean shrugged.

Sam’s car was as neat and fancy looking as the rest of him. Dean didn’t comment on it.

Sam moved differently, Dean noticed; gone was the slouch he’d had as a teen. Sam’s back was straight, his shoulders squared and he drove the car with an effortless kind of elegance and calm that Dean found alien. They didn’t speak during the car ride, and when they finally parked outside the apartment complex Dean was relieved to get out.

They got into the elevator, and Sam pressed the top floor button. Dean glanced at him. “Couldn’t afford a house?” he joked stiffly.

The corners of Sam’s mouth twitched. “Spent it all on shoes,” he murmured.

Dean snorted, secretly relieved that the awkward tension had lifted slightly.

When the elevator doors opened, they stepped into the kind of penthouse Dean had only ever seen in the movies before. He raised a disbelieving eyebrow and looked at Sam, who for the first time looked like the awkward teenager Dean remembered.

Dean let out a low whistle as he looked around. “Well what can I say, little brother? Don’t I feel silly now, worrying for seven years if you had a roof over your head.”

Sam looked slightly uncomfortable, not meeting Dean’s eyes. “Dean, look, I-“

Dean sneered. “Spare it, Sam.”

Sam closed his mouth again. He put his briefcase down on a table next to a vase of fresh lilies and gestured for Dean to follow him. They walked into a living room with two plush white couches and a glass table. There was a massive fireplace and the view of the city was impressive through the panorama windows. Dean refrained from commenting on the excessively exclusive interior, but Sam saw the look on his face.

“Jess likes the place,” he said, gesturing towards a cabinet next to the fireplace. “A drink?”

The sudden jolt of jealousy was like an unexpected punch in Dean’s gut. “Jess?” he asked tonelessly, nodding numbly as he watched Sam take out a crystal carafe and two glasses.

“My fiancé, Jessica.” Sam said as he poured amber colored liquor into the glasses and handed one to Dean as he gestured for him to sit down. Dean sank down into one of the couches, his fingers white around the glass as he stared at Sam’s left ring finger. How had he not noticed the ring in the car? Of course Sam had a fucking fiancé. He was a loaded lawyer for fucks sake. Dean should’ve known.

Dean took a big gulp of the whiskey. At the same time, he heard a female voice from the door.

“Did I hear my name?”

Dean turned around. A pretty blond little thing walked into the room, smartly dressed and with a fancy looking bag dangling from her arm. She strutted over to Sam in high heels, bending down to kiss him hello.

Dean instantly hated her.

Sam kissed her back, smiled softly at her, then glanced across the table at Dean. “Jess,” he said softly, “This is my brother, Dean.”

Jessica spared him a glance for the first time upon entering the room. Dean saw how distaste flickered across her pretty face as she took in his flannel shirt and gas station shoes before she managed to mask it behind a sugary sweet smile.

“Pleasure, I’m sure,” she said tilting her head to the side, reaching out her hand. Dean shook it stoically.

“Likewise,” he muttered.

Jessica looked at Sam. “You never said your brother was going to visit,” she said. Her voice was still sugary sweet but there was an edge in it now. She looked back at Dean. “Forgive me, I was under the impression that Sam had broken with his family.”

It was the way she said it – so casually; like it was nothing. It made Dean feel so damn small and insignificant, he felt like dirt; a stain on their perfect white couch, an inconvenience.

It must’ve showed on his face, because Sam cleared his throat awkwardly, before he said: “It wasn’t quite like that.”

Dean knocked back more whiskey before he smiled bitterly at his brother and the first blonde gorgeous woman he’d ever hated. “Sure it was, Sammy. You left me and dad seven years ago and never looked back, no reason to beat around the bush, right?”

Jessica looked taken aback from Dean’s bluntness. “And your dad, is he – is he in town, too?” she asked.

Dean’s eyes flickered over at Sam before he said shortly: “Dad’s dead.”

Sam had refused to meet Dean’s eyes up until that moment. He looked at Dean, his eyes wide in shock. He put his glass down to the table a little bit too hard, his hands trembling slightly. “Jess,” he said, his voice slow and contained, “Would you excuse us for a minute?”

Jessica obliged, probably happy she got to leave this nightmare of a family reunion.

As soon as the door had closed behind her, Sam rose from the couch, staring down at Dean. “When?” he demanded, his voice tight.

Dean crossed his arms over his chest as he glared up into his brother’s face. “I torched his body three years ago outside of Lawrence,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Felt like the right place. He got the thing that murdered mom,” he added bitterly. “Whatever that is to you.”

Sam sunk down back to the couch, hand in his hair as he leant forward. “Damn it, Dean. Why didn’t you let me know? He was my father too!”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You would’ve cared? You would’ve come? I didn’t contact you because you’d made it damn clear that you didn’t want anything to do with us. I remember every single word you said that night you left, you know. You made it abundantly clear that you didn’t want us in your life, that you didn’t want us near you again – what was the phrase? Right, you called us _poisonous_. So forgive me for not getting in touch with you, _you_ _fucking dick_.”

Sam had the decency to look ashamed. He looked over at Dean, and damn it if Dean didn’t feel himself melt as he saw the look in those puppy eyes. “I remember what I said that night, too,” Sam said softly. “I didn’t mean most of it.”

Dean closed his eyes. He felt tears prickle behind his eyelids. “Seven years, Sammy,” he mumbled. “It was easy to believe you meant it for seven years.”

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam whispered. “I’m sorry I let you think that all this time.”

Dean opened his eyes again, trying to pull himself together. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he lied. It did matter. It mattered so fucking much to him, but what was the point of showing it? Dean knew what would happen next. Sam and him would eat a meal together, Dean would get into the Impala, and then he wouldn’t see Sam ever again. He couldn’t. He could never be a part of whatever life Sam had set up for himself. He felt like an imposter just being in his apartment, he was the shadow of a past Sam had worked so hard to leave behind and Dean would walk away from Sam, even though he knew it would break his heart to do it.

Whatever. His heart was broken to begin with, anyway.

Maybe it didn’t matter, after all.

“So,” Dean said as he downed the rest of his whiskey. “How about that dinner?”

Jessica’s head peaked in through the door. “I’m starving!” she said around a smile.

Dean’s jaw clenched.

Sam glanced at Dean before he replied. “Yeah, honey. We were thinking the diner down on main street.”

Jessica’s pearly laugh made Dean’s skin crawl. “The diner? Why would you ever want to go to that tacky old place? I feel like sushi.”

Sam gave Dean an apologetic look. “Do you mind sushi?” he asked sheepishly.

Dean forced a smile onto his face. “Nah,” he drawled sarcastically. “Who’d want a good old fashioned cheeseburger when you could have raw, cold fish?”

*

Dean didn’t say much during the dinner. The place Jessica had picked was a downtown Asian restaurant with loud, horrible lounge music that charged 12 bucks a shrimp. Dean hated the place almost as much as he hated the sight of her.

It wasn’t just her; it was the way Sam _behaved_ around her. His voice unnaturally soft, paying attention to every little whim of hers. Sam was like a lynx that tried very hard to pass for a housecat around her.

Jessica was talking constantly. “-but then of course the wedding will be in June next year. Sam wanted a winter wedding for some reason, naturally that’s not going to happen.” She laughed. “Winter weddings are just terrible, don’t you agree?”

Dean’s eyes flickered over to Sam. Winter had always been Sam’s favorite season. Their summers had been close to unbearable, the Impala a god damn sauna and their motels had almost always lacked air condition. Sam had loathed it. Winters were better for him, he loved the snow and the clear starry nights when they could sit on the hood of the Impala, wrapped in heavy blankets and watch the night skies.

He'd almost seemed happy to Dean during the winters.

Dean smiled broadly at her, chugging back some of his beer. He could tell Sam saw that his smile was fake. “I think the most important thing is that you get to walk down the aisle with that gorgeous rock, sweetheart,” he said, nodding at her ring. “What is it, silver?”

“White gold and diamond,” she said, a tinge of snobbishness in her voice as she looked down to admire her well-manicured hand.

Dean felt his dislike in his goddamn _teeth_. “My brother clearly has expensive taste,” he murmured. “Or maybe that’s just you,” he added into his beer glass. He knew he was rude but he’d downed three beers and had raw salmon for dinner. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Excuse me?” Jessica asked pointedly, her eyes narrowing. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing at all, sugar,” Dean said, his grin still plastered across his face.

Jessica let out a small gasp of outrage. “I have to go to the ladies,” she announced, and there was no trace of the sugary politeness from before.

When she left the table, Dean looked over at Sam and to his surprise, Sam half smirked into his own beer.

“What?” Dean chuckled. “You’re not pissed I kinda suggested that your future Mrs is a gold-digging skank?”

Sam bit his lip to keep from laughing and he had a three-beers-in blush across his cheeks. Dean thought he was so beautiful it was almost painful to look at him.

“It’s only half-true,” Sam said, the smirk still playing at the corners of his mouth. “Still, no one ever speaks to Jess like that. It’s entertaining.”

Dean’s eyes met Sam’s over the table. They gleamed in the candlelight, and Dean heard himself ask: “So, any chance I can spend some time with you alone before I hit the road? Maybe go to a proper bar and hang out, just us. I have a feeling that won’t happen anytime soon, you know?”

Dean swallowed as he watched Sam’s unreadable face. “Or are you even more whipped than I thought?” he drawled, for good measure.

That seemed to do it. Sam smiled and looked down to the table. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll get the check.”

“Bet you will, sugar daddy,” Dean said cheekily.

Sam flipped him the finger before calling on the waiter.


	2. Measure for Measure part two

 

_Measure for Measure_

_Part two_

 

For the first time since meeting Sam again, Dean felt at ease. The bar around him was his natural habitat; cheap beer and pool tables, classic rock blasting from the speakers. In the corner of his eye he noticed how Sam tugged at the knot of his tie. Dean couldn’t help smirking.

“Been a long time since you were in a bar like this, Sammy?”

Sam looked down at him, hair falling into his eyes as he pulled his beer towards him. “You have no idea,” he said, leaning down towards Dean to be heard over _Bad company_. “Haven’t been in a bar this trashy since collage, probably.”

Sam’s breath was hot against Dean’s ear, and Dean felt a shiver run down his spine and he flinched, as though bothered by a persistent fly.

Dean took a sip of his beer. “Yeah? You like it?”

Sam looked around, nodding. “I do. I’d forgotten how much.”

Dean looked him up and down, grinning. “You don’t exactly blend in, you know. You always dress like that these days?”

Sam shrugged before chugging back more beer. “I pretty much live at work. You get used to it.” He rubbed at his neck. “Wanna try getting a table?”

It took them a while but they finally found a table in the back of the bar, and as they sat down, a silence stretched between them. Sam didn’t look directly at Dean when finally broke it: “It does mean something to me,” he said carefully. “Just so you know.”

Dean frowned. “What does?”

Sam’s eyes met his now. “That dad managed to waste the thing that killed mom. I… It makes me think he could go quietly, you know? Like he finally found peace.”

Dean looked over Sam’s shoulder, feeling his shoulders tense up. Bitterness bled into his voice when he said, coldly, “I’m glad you’ve finally come to terms with dad’s death, Sam. You just jumped straight past the grieving stage to perspective, didn’t you?”

Sam pushed his beer to the side, rested his fingertips against each other and fixed Dean with a somber looking stare. “Dean, you have to understand something,” he said slowly. “I never thought I’d see any of you again. I thought… I came to terms with that years ago. I’d made up my mind the night that I left that it would be the last time I saw either of you. I’m sorry dad’s dead, but it doesn’t really change much. Not for me. I’m just happy our shitty childhood wasn’t in vain – I’m happy he got the son of a bitch.”

Dean swallowed, staring down into his beer. He supposed he got it, he did, it was just – well. It hurt like hell. “It wasn’t all that bad,” he muttered. There was a pause, then he added: “Not compared to what I had when you’d left, anyway.”

“I’m sorr-“ Sam began, but Dean looked up at him, silencing him with a stony glare.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Dean said, his voice tight. “Hasn’t mattered in a long time. Save it.”

Sam suddenly looked so lost, sitting there in that suit and the watch and all the other gadgets he used to mask his shabby motel childhood, looking every inch like the little boy Dean remembered.  

“Hey,” Dean said, voice low. “Dad never stopped worrying about you, you know. He never – never stopped loving you. You were like… A phantom pain or something.”

Maybe there was a trick of the light, but Dean thought he saw something wet gleam in Sam’s eyes for a moment. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he said, so quietly Dean almost couldn’t hear him.

“I don’t know,” Dean said tonelessly, draining the rest of his beer to have something else to do than stare across the table at Sam’s upset face. _Bang up job there, Dean_ , he thought to himself. _Been here less than twelve hours and Sam already looks miserable_. “Thought you’d might like to know.”

The conversation became steadily lighter after that. They talked, and joked, and Dean couldn’t understand how he’d lived for seven years without this, without Sam’s laughter and their easy banter. The warmth in his chest soon turned into an ache as he realized that in the morning, he’d turn his back on this. Again.

They would part, again, though this time, Dean would be the one to leave. He’d caught a glimpse of Sam’s strangely dollhouse like existence, and he could plainly see that it held no place for Dean or his gas station shoes. Sam lived the American dream in tailored suits with a blonde on his arm, and Dean. Dean was a killer for a living, and that was that. He’d roll out of town and they’d part like they once did all those years ago. Only this time, there would be no drama. No one would scream and break things, wouldn’t chase a bus through the Nevada desert on a _bike_ because dad had taken the keys to the Impala.

This time they would simply say goodbye, and that would be it.

_That had to be it_ , Dean grimly assured the part of himself that clawed and raged inside of him, the part that wanted to lean over the table right now and pull Sam close by that prim and proper tie and kiss his warm mouth until they couldn’t breathe.     

Dean cleared his throat. “Another one?” he half yelled over Robert Plant’s wailing.

Sam glanced at his watch. “Uh, yeah. A last one, then I better head home.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Bitch.”

Sam grinned up at him. “Jerk,” he said, and Dean turned around and left for the bar.

The bar was crowded and Dean tried to shove his way to the front.

“Hey,” growled a voice right beside him, “You don’t order before me, dick.”

Dean cast a glance at the him. Mid-forties, tall and broad clad in a black leather vest. Dean quickly realized who was the owner of the braggy HD outside.

Dean raised an eyebrow at him before turning to the bartender. “Two more, sweetheart,” he said over the noisy bar. She threw him a quick smile before she tossed her dark hair over the shoulder and began to pour.

“Looks like I am,” Dean said with a lazy grin at the MC dude.

He didn’t see the punch coming, something he’d be highly embarrassed about under normal circumstances, but he was currently far too distracted by the hazy sight of Sam, looking livid, pushing the MC guy to the nearest wall by the throat.

“Touch him again and I’ll kill you,” Sam snarled into the suddenly tiny looking man’s face.

Pain blossomed behind Dean’s eye, though he felt his breath hitch in his throat for entirely different reasons. It was how Sam towered over that guy; teeth bared in anger, with his rolled-up sleeves and loosened tie. The thought that uninvitedly flew through Dean’s head was, _I’d take a million beats if that meant getting to watch Sam all wound up_.

“If your boyfriend wasn’t such a dick he wouldn’t need his ass to be protected by a douche suit like you,” the guy spat, and Dean almost admired his courage.

Sam’s fist made an awfully crushing noise as it crashed into the guy’s jaw, sending him toppling to the floor.

Dean vaguely noticed that Sam’s knuckles bled when he pulled Dean up from the floor. “Come on,” Sam huffed against his ear, smelling of expensive cologne and cheap beer. “Let’s go home.”

*

The silence in Sam’s penthouse was quite the emphasizer to Jessica’s rapid footsteps as they padded their way over the polished marble. Sam and Dean stood in the hall, next to the vase of white lilies. Sam’s broken knuckles bled into the cuffs of his crisp white shirt, and Dean couldn’t see through the swelling of his left eye.

Jessica emerged in a silk slip, with her hair in a perfectly tousled braid with some hairs coming out in wisps around her sleepy, rosy cheeks. Her mouth though, previously pink and smiling, was now pressed into a thin line. “It’s two am,” she informed them, eyes on Sam. “And you’ve been in a fight.”

Dean cleared his throat. “It was my fault,” he said.

Jessica narrowed her eyes in his direction. “I never doubted it,” she assured him disdainfully. “Sam, can I talk to you, _privately_?”

They disappeared into the living room. Completely unnecessary really, since Dean could still hear every word though slightly muffled.

“What the hell is going on, Sam?”

“I’m allowed to spend time with my brother, Jessica. I haven’t seen him in years.”

“And by ‘spending time with your brother’ you mean getting drunk and getting into bar fights? Sam, he’s only been here a day, and look at you! You’re bleeding and you reek of alcohol, you have to be in _court_ tomorrow and-“

“And that’s really none of your business,” Sam interrupted her, not unkindly, but sharply. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Jess.”

“We’re getting married,” she said flatly. “You tumbling in drunk through the door at two in the morning with trash like him, is most definitely my business.”

There was a long, ominous pause before Sam said, very coldly: “We grew up in motel rooms with cockroaches. We shared clothes because we couldn’t afford double of everything. I had my first glass of champagne when I was twenty-five, and I hated it. I’m like him. His name is Dean, and he’s my brother, and he’s the best person I’ve ever known. _And he is not trash_.”

Dean’s heart skipped a beat, before it seemed to stop altogether when Jessica dryly asked: “If he was so damn amazing, then how come you’ve always said that you never wanted to see him again?”

Dean felt like he took a punch to the gut. Sam never wanted to see Dean again, and Dean had wanted nothing more than to see Sam. The small glimpse of hope that he’d allowed to keep him going all these years was the wish that when Sam had left, he’d left because he was going after something, not because he desperately wanted to leave something behind.

Wanted to leave Dean.

That glimpse of hope was unceremoniously just stifled, and Dean felt himself grow unnaturally tired. It was as though his thirty years of living suddenly collapsed on him, leaving him paralyzed with fatigue.

“I had my reasons,” Sam murmured. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a good person.”

“He’s been quite rude to me,” Jessica said, irritably. “And I don’t want him at our wedding, and I definitely don’t want him in my home.”

Dean stepped into the living room, gesturing at Sam when he tried to speak. “I’ve clearly overstayed my welcome,” he said slowly, trying to sound unfazed. “I just need the keys to the Impala then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Dean, please,” Sam said, taking a step towards Dean. “Stay. I want you to.”

Dean looked at them, at Jessica’s disgruntled face, Sam’s bloodied knuckles and their white furniture. He couldn’t bear staying another five minutes in this lily scented nightmare of polished marble. “I’d really like to leave now,” he said blankly, holding out his hand. “The keys?”

Sam dug around in his pockets and pulled out the keys, dropping them into Dean’s waiting palm.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked, and when their eyes met Dean almost visibly flinched from the hurt and sorrow in Sam’s eyes. Dean looked away quickly. There were a million things he wanted to tell Sam, and if he didn’t leave now he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

“The motel downtown,” Dean said, eyeing Jessica coldly. “Probably full of cockroaches. Gonna be just like home.” He nodded his head in mock politeness at her, before he took one last look at Sam’s upset face.

Dean left without another word.

He walked the ten blocks to where the impala was parked, and if he felt something about Sam not following him, well, it certainly wasn’t disappointment.

 

*

 

If the motel had cockroaches, Dean didn’t notice. Against his better judgment he’d picked up a bottle of Jack after he found the Impala, and stared down the sceptic looking receptionist of the motel when he demanded a room, and she didn’t protest. Maybe she could tell that Dean really, really wouldn’t handle rejection very well in his current state.

He gulped down several inches of Jack, trying to force sleep down his throat, then passed out on the bed.

He woke up to a banging on the door. He flew up from the bed, wincing at the pounding behind his eye. He opened the door, and felt a twinge of annoyance at the sight of a motel staff member.

Not that he’d expected anyone else, of course.

“Yeah?” he growled, watching sourly how the woman made a tiny grimace at his breath.

“It’s eleven, sir,” she said with practiced politeness, but Dean didn’t miss the unimpressed scowl that flickered across her face as she took in his undoubtedly shabby appearance. “I’m going to have to ask you to check out.”

“I’ll be out in five minutes,” he said dispassionately. “Trust me, I have no intention of staying in this town.”

Fifteen minutes later, he was on the highway.

Dean tried very hard not to think of Sam’s face.

He’d never see it again, anyway.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I'm SO SORRY I haven't updated this in forever- but here it is! It's not finished, there is more to come, and I'm so so so happy you all seem to enjoy it so far. Much love and THANK YOU for the comments and kudos - they literally make my day. Lots of love - Ninni


	3. Chapter 3

Dean contemplated driving until he hit a _wall_. Easy, fast, and wasn’t that how James Dean had died, anyway?

Dean remembered how John had made him and Sam watch _Rebel Without a Cause_ when they were kids, and he still remembered how Sam had looked at him, almost in awe, when he’d said: “He reminds me of you, Dean.”

James Dean had died just like this, speeding down California State Route 46 in his favorite car before meeting his end in a violent crash. Seemed like a decent way to go.

But Dean wasn’t a 50’s movie star, and the Impala wasn’t a Porsche Speedster. As it turned out, Dean only drove until he’d put the state border a couple of hours behind him, and parked outside the first bar he could find. As the engine made its final growl before falling silent, he leant his head back and closed his eyes.

He probably shouldn’t have.

Sam’s face was etched into his brain, and it was not the same face Dean had tried to repress the memory of for years. It wasn’t seventeen-year-old little Sammy anymore; with dimples and teenage zits and dark bangs that fell into young eyes that had seen everything and had seen nothing; not anymore.

This face had a three-a-clock shadow across a strong jaw; a cool gaze that gave very little away and dark, flowing hair that framed a face that wore a constant expression of well-practiced indifference.

Dean wanted to kiss that face.

As badly as he’d wanted to lean over the breakfast table back then and kiss Sam’s mouth; to taste that morning grin and sweet, frosty cereals that Dean had stolen for him, he wanted to drag that prim and proper lawyer down for a filthy kiss; wanted to break through that unruffled and collected surface and rile him up and perhaps even make him _sparkle_ , in the way Sam once had done.

Before he’d left, gotten rich, and started to enjoy cold fish.

And sushi.

Dean wanted to punch the dashboard, but he settled for swearing quietly before getting out of the car and marching into the bar, grimly making the decision of not leaving it before he was hammered enough to pass out without images of Sam all over his inner eye.

A few hours later, Dean was half-way there. His back was turned away from the crowd where he hunched over the bar top, scowling into his whiskey. The smell of peanuts and stale beer was thick in his nose, bringing back the memory of the last time he’d been in a seedy bar.

He took another large gulp from his whiskey.

“Howdy, lonely boy.”

Dean glanced to his side. The kid couldn’t have been older than twenty-one, and he was almost a head shorter than Dean. His smile was coy, an act of course; and his dark eyelashes were long where they curled around his bright blue eyes.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Howdy,” he replied, gloomily amused. “Texas bred, or are you just trying to find yourself?”

The boy flashed the pearly whites in a smile, pushing his dirty-blonde hair behind his ear. “Kansas,” he said in a voice a little bit too confident for a twenty-one-year-old. He looked at Dean, his eyes flickering across Dean’s face appreciatively. “You?”

Dean gestured to the bartender before he downed the rest of his drink. “I’m from around,” he said, voice rough with whiskey. “One more,” he said to the bartender, who looked between Dean and the blue-eyed kid questioningly.

The kid made a noise with his tongue, the kind of noise that said _No drink for me?,_ and then he said, eyes on Dean’s profile: “I’m Emil, by the way. And I drink bourbon on the rocks.”

Dean laughed humorlessly. “Whatever, kid. I’m here alone, and I’m leaving alone.”

Emil shrugged, and his lips were damp against Dean’s ear when he tiptoed up and said in a sultry, southern drawl: “Whatever indeed, lonely boy. Find me if you change your mind.”

The kid swaggered away, and Dean went back to nursing his drink. His mind disobediently wandered. He wondered what Sam was doing. Maybe he was having glorious makeup-sex with his gold-digging girlfriend, fucking her right in the middle of their clean and elegant living room; bent over a piece of expensive furniture. Maybe he tugged her head back by her long hair, growling into her ear how good her pussy felt, felt her dripping all over his hard dick.

Dean’s jaw clenched.

He couldn’t do this.

It would drive him crazy; this obsession, this obsession that he’d been able to stifle only by years and years of not seeing Sam, not talking to him, not riding in a car with him and smelling him and hearing his pearly laughter quietly next to him.

Dean was like a heroin addict who’d managed to quit cold turkey years ago, but who had been held down and shot up again and now he was back to square one; his mind a one-tracked disaster just waiting to come apart.  

He drank until the bartender told him that they were closing up. When Dean stepped out to the parking lot he found that Emil kid outside with a cigarette between his slim fingers. He was leaning against the wall, eyeing Dean. “Brooding your way home now, lonely boy?” he asked.

Dean could smell the cigarette smoke in the warm night breeze. “Something like that,” he mumbled, searching for his car keys in his pockets.

Emil flicked away his cigarette and strolled up to Dean, his face kind of childishly determined. “You know,” he said with that cocky, twenty-one-year-old southern confidence, “Whoever they are, they aren’t worth it.”

Dean froze, and his head snapped up in Emil’s direction. He stared at him stonily. “What are you talking about?”

Emil just shrugged with the air of a spoiled cat. “Whoever it is you’re trying to drown the memory of in a shithole like this,” he gestured towards the bar, “Isn’t worth it. I mean,” he added, sounding a little breathless as he stared somewhat dreamily at Dean’s mouth. “Look at you. You can have anyone you want.”

Dean gripped his denim jacket and pulled him roughly towards him. White, hot anger seared through his chest when he snarled into his face: “No I fucking can’t, you little shit, so _shut your mouth_.”

Emil didn’t look at all scared of Dean, instead his eyelids lowered and he licked his lips. “Let’s blow off some steam,” he said, a slight tremble in his voice. “Don’t you wanna fuck me?”

Dean wasn’t sure what made him do it. Maybe it was the jealous thoughts that gnawed at his brain mercilessly, maybe it was the booze, maybe Emil’s little mouth. Whatever it was, it made him press his lips against the kid’s mouth in a rough, punishing kiss; made him tangle his fingers in that that long dirty-blonde hair and _tug_.

Emil moaned into Dean’s mouth; he tasted like cigarettes and hard candy, and Dean broke the kiss and stared into Emil’s dazed face. “S’that what you want?” he asked darkly, his mouth curling into a sneer. “To be fucked?”

Emil licked his lips, and pressed his hard cock against Dean’s thigh. “Yeah,” he breathed. “That’s what I want.”

Dean dragged him to the Impala, opened the door to the backseat, and growled: “Get in.”

Dean knew he was too rough with him.

He teared off the kid’s clothes unceremoniously, teeth digging into that full bottom lip before he pushed him off his lap and ordered, tersely: “On your knees.”   

Dean didn’t even know if the whines Emil made as he thrusted brutally into him was from pleasure or pain but Dean couldn’t find it in himself to care, because the raw, physical satisfaction numbed the ache in his chest, and he swore nastily as his fingers tangled in Emil’s hair, his other hand digging bruises into the narrow hips.

The ecstasy; the white-hot pleasure and the feeling of temporary ease disappeared seconds after Dean came without warning, shooting inside the little pliant body he had shoved into the leather seat.

It was over just like that, and Dean was surprised when Emil wiped come off his own belly.

Dean hadn’t even laid a hand on him.

Emil winced as he pulled his jeans back up, and Dean asked half-heartedly: “You OK?”

Dean could dimly see the kid raise an eyebrow in the darkness. “I don’t mind it rough,” he said. After a moment, he added, sharply: “You didn’t know that, though.”

Dean didn’t apologize. He was too damn _tired_.

Emil asked, reluctantly: “Can I crash at yours tonight?”

Dean glanced over at him. “Sure,” he said dismissively, gesturing vaguely at the backseat. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be in the front.”

Dean got out, walked around, and climbed into the front seat where he lay down, and shut his eyes. His body was perfectly exhausted, and he could barely keep his eyes open.

“You sleep in your car?” The kid asked from the backseat, skeptically. “Did I just sleep with a fucking _bum_?”  

“Whatever, kid.”

Dean drifted off with his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth a tight, bitter line.

*

When Dean woke up, everything was perfectly horrible. His mouth was dry and his head thrummed with pain behind his skull, daylight streamed rudely in through all windows, and he was sticky from the heat.

And, he slowly realized, someone was talking in a low, lazy drawl from the backseat.

“Dean? Oh, _Dean_! So that’s his name. Nah, man. He’s asleep. Who’s calling?”

Dean sat up, reached into the backseat, and cursed. “What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing with my phone?” he growled at Emil, who blinked at him, as Dean snatched the phone vigorously out of his hand.

“Hello?” Dean snarled into the phone, still glaring at the kid in his backseat.

It was silent on the other end for a moment, before a voice said: “Dean?”

Dean felt as though all air was being drained from his lungs. He turned away from Emil. “Sam?” he asked, not because he wasn’t sure it was him, but because he never in a million years expected him to call. “How did you get my number?”

Dean could hear Sam swallow. “Your files, they. Er, they had this number listed as your current one. I didn’t. I didn’t know if you’d pick up, I remember we used to change phones and numbers a lot.”

Dean rubbed at his temple. “Yeah. I still do that. I haven’t had time to do it yet, though.”

There was a small pause, then Sam said: “Good. Where are you?”

“Nevada,” Dean grumbled. “Couple of hours from Reno.”

“Really?” Sam sounded a little surprised. “I thought you’d gotten further by now.”

Dean’s grip of the phone tightened. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I, um. I got caught up here.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Yeah I got that,” he said, evenly. “Did you pick up a hitchhiker or something?”

Dean couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Why are you calling me, Sam?” he asked, shortly.

There was something about Sam’s tone that infuriated Dean. Sam had no right, _no fucking right whatsoever_ , to call Dean up and demand to know where he was, who he was with, had no right to make Dean feel like a petulant teenager who’d misbehaved.

“I wanted to apologize,” Sam said in a low voice, as if telling a secret. “For how we left things. For Jess. You’re of course welcome to the wedding; she was way out of line, and I. I didn’t want us to part like that.” There was another pause, then Sam said, softly: “I was so happy to see you again. I didn’t like to see you go.”

Dean bit his lip, hard, and his throat ached with restrained sorrow. He wanted to cry, or laugh, or tell Sam to shut the fuck up, because Dean wasn’t strong enough to have this conversation. He managed, at last, through grit teeth: “It was good to see you too. And you know, apology accepted. Though you don’t have to make a seat for me at the wedding, Sammy. I’m not going.”

There was a soft chuckle on the other end. “You still call me that,” Sam murmured. “It’s nice.”

“You didn’t use to think so.”

Sam was quiet, and after a moment Dean asked: “You still there?”

“Come back,” Sam suggested, his voice tense. “Just. Spend the weekend here, or something. You can stay at my place, and we can just – you know. Hang out.”

Dean almost dropped the phone. “What about Jessica?”

He could _hear_ Sam smile through the phone. “Don’t worry, she’s visiting relatives this weekend. So,” he said, sounding a little nervous. “What do you say?”

Dean knew there were reasons, very good ones, to say no. To tell Sam that he appreciated the offer, but that he had a case. Dean knew that if he went back, he’d stifle the one tiny little glimpse of hope that he still had that maybe, just maybe, he could live a life without spending every day being miserable over his little brother.

He _knew_.

Dean said: “OK, Sammy. I’ll turn around.”

“You’ll come?”

Dean’s heart skipped a beat at the hopefulness in Sam’s voice. “Yeah. See you soon.”

He flipped his phone shut and threw it into the seat next to him before leaning over the steering wheel, cursing under his breath.

God, he really _was_ an idiot.

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

Dean had completely forgotten about Emil in the backseat, and he made a muffled sort of noise into the steering wheel. “Yeah,” he said, cause there was no point denying it. “And you better get out now, cause I’m going back to California.”

Emil got out, and Dean started up the engine.

Then, Emil got in again, this time in the front seat. Dean narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m leaving the state,” he clarified. “Get out.”

Emil gazed at him with a cool, blue gaze, and there was a touch of defiance around his mouth. “I heard you,” he said. “I’m catching a ride. That’s the least you can do, don’t you think?”

Dean huffed. “What are you even going to do in California?”

Emil dragged a hand through his long tresses. “I’m gonna be a movie star,” he smirked. “I’m gonna be like James Dean.”

Dean rolled his eyes, and steered for the highway.

 

AN: Wow, thank you all so much for the feedback! It’s so amazing and encouraging to see, I can’t even begin to tell you how much it means to me. As always, I’m sorry for the long wait. I’m a terrible person. X-Ninni

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! Comments and kudos = *wow*


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